What aircraft?
I learned on an R22 and held on to the cyclic like I was strangling a cat. My instructor said that if I held it between my thumb and forefinger I would have much finer control but that felt like alchemy to me.
Then, one day, I don't remember when, I started holding the stick as described and it truly transformed my control of the aircraft, rather than controlling from my elbow and shoulder, I was making fine adjustments with my fingers and wrist.
I distinctly remember the day that it all fell into place. I was holding short at the threshold looking up the approach and talking to ATC at the same time, my arms and legs were just doing their things without me thinking about it.
BTW, like you, I was flying about an hour a week so that I could continue to run my business. Given my time over, I would have taken a couple of months off and flown every day rather than spending the first half hour of each lesson relearning what I'd forgotten from the week before.